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Kurdish
successes in Iraq's elections, notably in the
disputed oil centre of Kirkuk, have heightened
Turkey's worries about a future Kurdish drive for
independence and Iraq's consequent territorial
disintegration.
With domestic pressure increasing on Turkey's prime
minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ministers have
hinted at renewed military intervention. This is
causing additional strains in Ankara's relations
with the US. Turkish concerns focus on the area
around multi-ethnic Kirkuk, where the Brotherhood
slate allied to the Kurdish Alliance of Jalal
Talabani and Massoud Barzani won 59% of the
provincial council vote. The Turkoman Front,
representing a minority that Ankara has vowed to
protect, took 18%.
Turkey ruled Kirkuk until 1923, and nationalists
still regard it as Turkish territory.
Mr Erdogan has warned that Turkey will not stand by
if Kurds try to realise their objective of including
Kirkuk in the Kurdish autonomous region.
He complained last month that tens of thousands of
Kurds had moved into the area since the war. Many
want to reclaim land and property lost to the
forcible "Arabisation" policy pursued by Saddam
Hussein.
But Ankara protested yesterday that resulting
"imbalances" had skewed the Kirkuk poll. "Some
people are looking the other way while mass
migration takes place," Mr Erdogan said, in a dig at
the US. "This is going to create major difficulties
in the future."
The issue has dominated the Turkish media for weeks
amid reports of sporadic assaults and intimidation
of Turkomans. Turkomans and Iraqi Arabs have vowed
to resist Kirkuk's assimilation amid talk of
possible civil war.
"Kirkuk is the number one security issue and public
concern right now," a Turkish diplomat said. "Kirkuk
is a potential powder keg. For us it has special
status. It is like Jerusalem. It belongs to all the
people. We do not want to intervene in Iraq. But we
have red lines - Kirkuk and attacks on ethnic
minorities."
Other considerations are in play. Whoever controls
Kirkuk potentially controls oilfields representing
40% of Iraq's proven reserves. Such wealth could
render an independent Kurdish state economically
viable.
There are also widely-shared concerns that the Iraqi
Kurds' advances could inspire emulation by the
Kurdish minority in south-east Turkey as well as
among Kurds in Syria and Iran.
US reluctance to suppress 4,000 secessionist
Kurdistan Workers party guerrillas exiled in
north-east Iraq could tempt Ankara to do the job.
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, tried
to calm things down in Ankara last week, reiterating
Washington's commitment "to the territorial
integrity of Iraq". Kirkuk's status should be
decided by all Iraqis, she said.
Like the US, the EU would frown on any intervention,
even though the western powers continue to oppose
Kurdish independence. US military bases in northern
Iraq are reportedly being discreetly reinforced.
The official Kurdish aim is fully autonomous status
within a democratic, federal Iraq. One leading
Kurdish politician, Hoshyar Zebari, recently
criticised a petition seeking immediate
independence. But the national election results have
given the Kurds significant leverage and they may
insist on Kirkuk as the capital of Kurdistan in
return for supporting the new government.
Full independence remains the hope of many if not
most Kurds. Even if they obtain the federal
constitutional guarantees they want, and assuming
old internecine feuds remain in check, sooner or
later they may seek the freedom and
self-determination that George Bush recently
declared a universal right.
Kurdistan's most likely president, Massoud Barzani,
has already sounded like a head of state when he
insisted in a TV interview that Kirkuk was a Kurdish
city. "Turkey should not intervene in our domestic
affairs," he said. "The result of such an
intervention would be a disaster."
www.guardian.co.uk
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